


A Fight For Love and Glory

by badritual



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy, Star Wars: The Rise of Kylo Ren (Comics)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Don't copy to another site, Gen, Not Canon Compliant - Star Wars: The Last Jedi, Not Canon Compliant - Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Relationship Tags To Be Added As They Happen, Rey Solo, Slow To Update, Stormtrooper Rebellion, see story notes
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-16
Updated: 2020-01-16
Packaged: 2021-02-27 15:33:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,477
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22279474
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/badritual/pseuds/badritual
Summary: Remember, a voice cuts softly through the fog of her dreams. Rey tosses and turns on her pallet.You must remember, Rey.
Relationships: Finn & Rey (Star Wars), Leia Organa & Rey, Poe Dameron & Finn, Poe Dameron & Finn & Rey, Poe Dameron & Rey, Rey & Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Kudos: 21





	A Fight For Love and Glory

**Author's Note:**

> Let’s call this my attempt at a TROS rewrite. There will be Rey Solo here. It'll draw a bit on organasrey’s [Rey Solo theories and meta](http://nullrefer.com/?http://organasrey.tumblr.com/the%20theory%20index)). It'll also be leaning on some of the the details of the (allegedly) leaked scripts, mainly the plot about the Resistance's communications being blocked by the First Order and the Stormtrooper Rebellion.
> 
> This also reimagines Kylo’s offer to Rey in _The Last Jedi_ , supposing that he played on her fear of being alone rather than not coming from a legacy family/not being a part of the story. 
> 
> Kylo Ren’s backstory here is most consistent with the available issues of the _The Rise of Kylo Ren_ comic, than what was previously assumed to be canon.

> _Mirrorbright, shines the moon, its glow as soft as an ember  
>  When the moon is mirrorbright, take this time to remember  
> Those you have loved but are gone  
> Those who kept you so safe and warm  
> The mirrorbright moon lets you see  
> Those who have ceased to be  
> Mirrorbright shines the moon, as fires die to their embers  
> Those you loved are with you still—  
> The moon will help you remember_   
> 

_A large gloved hand grips Rey’s arm, fingers digging in roughly. He’s dragging her someplace, through a large crowd of unfamiliar faces. The more she squirms, the tighter the hand squeezes. Her fear is a living thing, throbbing in her chest to the beat of her heart. But somehow, she just knows the person who’s holding onto her isn’t trying to hurt her._

_She looks up, squinting into the sun. At him._

_He’s trying to _save_ her._

_Rey knows she’s safe with him. He won’t leave her alone here. He’s—_

**_Remember_** , a voice cuts softly through the fog of her dreams. Rey tosses and turns on her pallet. **_You must remember, Rey._**

_The hand slips away. His lips move, corners curling into a lopsided smile that quickly smoothes into a carefully blank expression. “You’ll be safe here, kid.” A gloved hand reaches down and tousles her hair. “I’ll come back for you.”_

_She reaches for him, clawing at his long black coat. “ _No_!” Someone else grabs hold of her, jerks her back roughly and his cloak slips from her fingers. “Don’t leave me! Come back!”_

_Rey watches him move away from her, cutting a path through the teeming throng that surrounds them, his coat billowing behind him. He pauses for a moment, turning to glance over his shoulder at her. Dark eyes—_ **eyes you’ve seen before** , whispers the voice— _glitter like polished stones._

_She opens her mouth to call for him again but—_

Rey jolts awake with the phantom sound of a frightened child’s screams echoing in her head, ricocheting like blaster bolts off durasteel walls. As her eyes adjust to the dark, she makes out the gleaming lines of Luke’s lightsaber where it sits atop a pile of clothes opposite her bedroll. 

Sighing, she grinds her fists into her eyes and rubs away the sleep-grit. 

Her head still throbs with the sound of a child crying. Her arm aches with the memory of _his_ fingers clutching, not in anger or hate but in fear. Fear for her.

When she closes her eyes she can see the faint outline of him—the one who left her on Jakku. But she can’t see his face or recall his name. It’s been excised from her memory as if someone had taken a scalpel and cut it out. 

Rey scrubs at her face. She knows him. She _knows_ she knows him from somewhere, but his features are indistinct, blurred into an unrecognizable mess. There, a shock of black hair. There, a crooked smile. Her fractured memories come back to her in bits and pieces, like scraps of torn flimsi. 

She drops her hands into her lap and sighs. 

A rap on her door shakes her free from her somber thoughts. 

Finn leans in the doorway to her room, lips curving into a warm smile.

“Hey, you okay?” he asks, crossing his arms over his chest. “You look…”

“Like I’ve seen a Force ghost?” she mutters, getting up and crouching down to roll up her bedroll and stash it in a corner of her room, next to her tote bag. Turning back to Finn, she wipes her sweat-damp palms off on her trousers. “What is it, Finn? Is everything all right?”

“Yeah. There’s been a…” Here, Finn falters for a moment, the smile stuttering before sliding back into place. “A development.”

*** 

“There’s been a development.” Genera Leia marches to the front of the makeshift conference room, her long, black robes dragging over rutted stone. The ‘conference room’ consists of stacks of durasteel crates to sit on, a slab of rock masquerading as a table, and a floating holoprojector and not much else. Rey supposes it’s better than nothing, though.

General Leia sweeps the room with dark, all-seeing eyes, her lips thinning. Rey waits on tenterhooks, hands curled into fists over her knees.

Rey shifts uncomfortably beside Finn, her knee brushing against his, and reaches up to tug anxiously at one of her buns. A faint whisper of memory tickles at the back of her mind. 

Finn presses his knee back into Rey’s in silent reassurance and she feels herself start to relax, letting some of the tension unwind out of her cramped muscles.

“We’ve received a message from a spy,” the general says, her dark eyes flicking from face to face. She strokes at the deep blue stones of the ornate ring she wears on her right hand, the ring Rey’s never seen her without. “A spy within the ranks of the First Order.”

Rey catches Poe straightening up out of the corner of her eye, and she feels Finn shift uneasily beside her. 

“The spy,” the general continues, “has informed us that the First Order has been blocking our communications for over a year.”

A startled murmur rises like a wave, as Rey’s fellow Resistance members discuss what this revelation means. 

“No one came to aid us on Crait,” Kaydel Ko speaks up, her voice wavering only sightly, “because they didn’t know?”

“But how could they…?” another Resistance member speaks up, before trailing off.

“How could they just not know?” asks the pilot, Jessika Pava, as she tugs anxiously at the end of her braid.

General Leia side-steps the questions, the frightened looks and horrified whispers to continue on with the spy’s report. “Furthermore, the First Order spy has informed me that the Supreme Leader plans to unleash a final assault on our base and anyone who’s allied with or aided us along the way within the next forty-eight hours. First Order ships have already been sighted throughout the galaxy. There was report of an attack on Sullust yesterday.” General Leia pauses, her dark eyes growing distant and glassy for a moment. “And Yavin IV just this morning.”

Rey watches Poe Dameron sag next to Finn, drop his head into his hands and tear his fingers through his dark curls. Finn reaches out and clasps onto Poe’s shoulder, squeezing gently. 

“We must rally our allies and make a last stand,” Leia says, firmly, her eyes hardening. She grips her cane tightly, knuckles going white as she raps it on the stone underfoot for emphasis. “We are the last line of defense. We’re all that remains between the galaxy and total domination under the First Order.”

Several heads turn to take in the current state of the Resistance, including Rey’s. Their ranks have thinned even more since coming to the remote outpost of Ajan Kloss, as they’ve suffered loss after loss. How can they possibly be enough to hold back the darkness that threatens to swallow the galaxy whole? 

“We have to take out their communications jammers,” Poe mumbles mostly to himself, rubbing his hands over his face. “But do we even know where they are?”

“The Supreme Leader has only grown in strength since the Battle of Crait,” Leia murmurs, looking away. Her voice grows faint, distant, as if she’s been teleported back to the past. “He’s been all but consumed by darkness and his own inner turmoil. But a small pinpoint of light remains.”

Rey had wanted to believed so fiercely that that small pinpoint of light still remained within him. And she’d almost given up everything for Ben. She had wanted to take his hand so badly, drawn in and deceived by his empty promises and the pretty words that masked the putrid stench beneath like a cheap perfume. She’d come so close to giving up everything to rule beside him, simply because she was afraid of remaining alone.

 _“We’re so much alike, Rey,”_ the venomous memory of Ben’s voice hisses in her ear like smoke. Flames dance across her vision, and she sees his fist opening, fingers uncurling as he reaches for her. _“We could rule together, you and I, as emperor and empress. Your family never came back for you. They didn’t want you. They **abandoned** you on Jakku, Rey. Like you were nothing more than the junk you scavenged. But **I** came back for you. Be with me now and you will never know loneliness again.”_

Shuddering at the memory of how close she’d come to taking Ben’s offer, Rey reaches out and wraps her hand around Finn’s to chase away the memories that still lingered.

But are they memories? Or are they visions of a future that has yet to come to pass? 

Finn squeezes gently on her hand and the roiling sea that clashes within her settles some. Not completely, but enough.


End file.
